My phone is
dying. Last Thursday I couldn't get it to dock to my audio docking station,
nor would it charge connected to anything. So with my battery slowly draining,
I crossed everything off my to-do list for the day and headed off to the phone
store.

At the store I explained my problem to the phone
store guy and told him I suspected a broken or damaged pin in the docking
port and asked him, “Is it repairable or is it time to upgrade to a new phone?”

“Not very likely that any of the pins are
broken,” he told me, “Your docking port is probably got some pocket lint, or
the pins are just dirty or corroded. Take your phone home and use a
toothbrush and some alcohol and try cleaning it up.” (Note this helpful hint
for your future use, everybody!)

So I took it home, cleaned it up as he suggested
and plugged it into the charger. It made a satisfying “DING!” and started
charging immediately. I tried it a few more times & got a ding each time.
Yay! Back in business.

Next project: Buying chicken bedding at the local farm store. I loaded Bailey into the shotgun
seat of the truck, hopped into the driver’s seat and headed down the road. Once on the
way, I plugged my phone into the truck's docking cable so I could listen to
some tunes. Nothing happened. The screen remained black. When I pushed the "home" button, nothing happened. And I noticed liquid dribbling out of the bottom of my phone. I surmised
that maybe when cleaning the phone I should have sprayed the alcohol onto the
toothbrush and not into the docking port. I put the phone down and said a few
words that one should not say in front of one’s dog. Fortunately, Bailey is
deaf.

Bailey Riding Shotgun

About halfway to the farm store, the phone
emitted two dings and “What can I help you with?” along with the wavy lines appeared
on the screen. I was in the presence of Siri. Either there was some major
cross-connections going on inside the phone due to the alcohol, or Siri had
become sentient. Whatever the case, she was very insistent and the phone
continued to emit the double dings about every fifteen seconds. I finally started
responding with “Shut up, Siri….Shut up, Siri….Shut up, Siri….” To which she
finally responded (I swear I am NOT making this up!) “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes, Siri,” I replied. “I thought so,” she said. She sounded drunk. Probably
due to the alcohol. Then I tried the "home" button again and Siri finally went away.
I tucked my mentally unstable phone into my pocket.

At the farm store, I immediately noticed that
the pallet in front of the store where the pine shavings are normally kept was empty.
The store is never busy on a weekday and when I walked into the store four
or five employees were gathered around the checkout desk in the front of the
store. Stevie Wonder was blasting from the store’s PA system at high volume.
“Party time,” I thought. Everybody turned to look at me. “Do you STILL not have
pine shavings in? I asked, “I was here last week and you said they would be in
today.” “Sorry,” one of the clerks replied, “The feed truck hasn’t come in
yet.” “Well, then I’ll just have to get some straw,” I grumbled. I headed for
the back of the store. Stevie Wonder was at top volume in the back of the store
as well. It was “Forgivingness’ First Finale” – odd choice for a farm store, I
thought. Then I slowly began to realize how odd it was that no matter where I
went in the store, the volume of the music was constant. And that’s when I
figured out that the music was coming from my pants. I took my phone out of my pocket and hit the"home" button. Nothing happened. Repeat action. Nothing. So I hauled the straw to check out and paid
for it while serenading all the gathered staff. “Stevie
Wonder,” I told them. “Forgivingness’ First Finale. A great album. You should
get it and play it on your PA.” This elicited no response.

Back in the truck, I listened to the rest of
Stevie Wonder and then Sturgill Simpson, The Submarines, Sufjan Stevens, and Susan Tedeschi on the
way home. It seemed to be stuck on "S" artists. Bailey heard none of it nor my
comments. Fortunately, as I mentioned, she is deaf.

At home, I attacked my phone with canned air and
then a blow drier. The music finally stopped. At this point the only thing
wrong with phone is that it charges very slowly and won’t dock well – the
original problem. It’s time for an upgrade.

In
1931 the Hudson Manufacturing Company of Minneapolis obtained a patent for an
improved chicken watering device “adapted to store water and automatically feed
it to a drinking pan.” It consisted of a
metal sleeve that “telescoped” over a metal water reservoir and was held in
place by a pin on the reservoir locking into a slot on the sleeve. Water from the reservoir trickled into a
“drinking pan” to keep the pan full as the water was consumed by the
chickens. If you have chickens you
probably are using, or have used one of these metal double-walled watering founts. All in all it was a very nifty and ingenious
invention.

But over the years I’ve said some pretty hateful things about these nifty and
ingenious devices, and I’ll bet you have too.
Typically, I buy one at my local farm store and it works great for a
while, but without fail it reaches a point where it starts to overflow and
creates a quagmire of wet and smelly chicken bedding. That’s the point where my
tradition has been to conduct a little funeral ceremony by saying a few appropriate
words over the defunct fount. This is
followed by the “flinging ceremony”, where I pitch it into the nearest dark
corner of the coop. And then I go out
and buy a new one.

I
could never figure out why they would always fail, but one day after a few
beers and some deep mulling, the answer finally occurred to me. Before I share my epiphany with you, let me
first say a few words about the physics behind how these founts work. Yeah, I know.
Physics. But please stay with me. This won’t be too wonky and I’ll even throw
in a magic trick!

It has been a busy spring, but a couple of the hens have been in
need of some beauty touch-ups, so Kathy and I found some time to set up our
chicken spa. Angitou the golden Polish
hen recently completed a spring molt and shed and regrew all of her feathers
including the feathers in her beautiful and elaborate crest. She has a fantastic "hairdo" but
unfortunately her crest now completely covers her eyes. And if we can't see her eyes, that means she
can't see much of anything. Time for a
little tonsorial remediation. Kathy held
her in her lap, while I went to work with the scissors. Angitou was very brave, even when the scary
sharp scissors were snipping right around her eyes. Feathers, like our hair, are dead tissue, so a
feathercut is just like a haircut and causes the chicken no pain. The only thing to avoid is cutting the shaft
of the feather too close to the skin, and cutting pinfeathers during a
molt. Pinfeathers are very much living
tissue with a blood supply and can bleed a lot if cut.

If you’ve Googled your way to
this blog looking for poultry porn, you’ve come to the wrong place. Sorry to disappoint you, Foghorn, but this is
simply an informational and scientific discussion of chicken mating.

If, however, you are offended by
the concept of animals having nonchalant sex in public, this may be the wrong
place for you, as well. I grew up on a
farm so animals having sex everywhere
– all the time was simply part of my
childhood, for goodness sake! So it’s
hard for me to appreciate why anyone would make a fuss about it. If you’re going to make a fuss, though, just
leave now and remember that this is the warped and twisted blog where they talk
about vile animals having disgusting relations.

Translate

About Me

Privacy Policy

Randy’s Chicken Blog doesn’t share personal information with third parties or store any information about your visit other than to analyze and optimize your content and reading experience through the use of cookies.

You can turn off the use of cookies at any time by changing your specific browser settings.

Randy’s Chicken Blog is not responsible for republished content from this blog on other blogs or websites without permission.

This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on November 13, 2016. If you have any questions feel free to contact me directly.

Whew! I think that pretty much covers it!

Disclosure Statement

Starting November 17, 2016, an advertising program Google Adsense began to run on my blog. Your clicks on the ads shown on the blog don’t cost you anything but may result in a small commission for Randy’s Chicken Blog. While Google has guaranteed that the ads placed on my site will be relevant, I don’t have a great deal of control over which ads are displayed. I’ll do my best to block any content that goes against my values or that I believe to be questionable.

On November 27, 2016, Randy’s Chicken Blog became a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. If you click on a sponsored Amazon link and make a purchase Randy’s Chicken Blog may receive a small commission. Again, this costs you nothing, but it allows me and the Hipster Hens a little pocket change.

Mission Statement

Hi! I’m Randy and this is my chicken blog. I write it, edit it, take the pictures, feed the chickens, hug the chickens, etc. I blog because a few years ago, I got these chickens…I had no idea when I got my first chickens that I would get attached to them and become this sentimental, crazy old chicken guy. I had no idea that each chicken would have its own personality, that chickens had such a huge range of vocalizations that they literally “talk” to each other, that they have this amazing, intricate social structure, or that there would be so much drama in the coop—love, conflict, friendship, sex, motherhood, anxiety—a virtual soap opera playing out before my eyes every day.

So I write these little vignettes about my birds that are mostly whimsical but also mostly true. In the process of telling my stories I also pass along a variety of views and opinions which are completely my own. Please also bear in mind that the information I share regarding my care of my chickens has come from my experience caring for my flock. I’m not a veterinarian and I have had no formal education in any kind of chickenology.

There are a few facts that I hope to get across to anybody who regularly reads my blog:

1.My chickens are really cool.

2.All chickens are really cool.

3.The majority of chickens being raised for meat or egg production, in spite of their inherent coolness, are treated cruelly. You can help make changes by your purchasing habits. Educate yourself! Read labels! Check company websites!